AUSTRALIA
The Age
[with video]
November 13, 2013
Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.
It began slowly, amid some well-merited cynicism, but on Wednesday the Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled child sexual abuse delivered – and brilliantly.
Many of the victims who followed the inquiry religiously throughout its dozens of public sessions were almost euphoric after the report, Betrayal of Trust, was tabled in parliament and committee members rose to excoriate the concealers and enablers, and to recommend far-reaching reforms.
It was not just the recommendations, it was the tone. The inquiry had heard the victims – and believed them. It gave the vital verdict: vindication.
The inquiry heard from the church hierarchy too, in particular the Catholic Church – and took a far more sceptical view. The language with which they described the church made that clear, along with their rejection of the church claim that the problem was purely historical, as Archbishops Denis Hart and George Pell had suggested in evidence.
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